Crusty Bread

Jan. 1, 2015: Just released. Instructional video for the Crusty Bread recipe. Crusty Bread 3 cups unbleached all purpose flour 1 3/4 teaspoons Kosher salt 1/2 teaspoon Instant or Rapid-rise yeast 1 1/2 cups water In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, salt and yeast. I must begin by saying where the recipe originated, if in fact it originated anywhere...really. Remember before beginning to create, that this bread is highly forgiving. You do NOT have to have an enamel covered cast iron pot. You DO NOT need to oil the pot. In a large mixing bowl add 3 cups white unbleached flour. To the flour add 1 3/4 teaspoon salt (I use kosher I like it) and 1/2 teaspoon rapid rise or instant yeast. Whisk the flour, salt and yeast together. Add 1 1/2 cups water. Mix in the water. That's it! Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it set for 12 - 18 hours on the counter top. After 12 hours the dough will look like this. Meet my blue Le Creuset. Now, please disregard that this dough has stuff in it.

Bread. No kneadSuccess at last! No-knead bread. The no-knead bread phenomenon has been sweeping the Interwebs for several years now thanks to Mark Bittman, but I haven’t waded into the fun until now. For whatever reason, working with dough intimidates me, so I tend to stay away from it, but all the rave reviews of this no-knead bread had me curious. So I had to try it, which I did in September. Um, yeah, that didn’t help my Dough Confidence Quotient whatsoever.

Crock Pot Bread Baking (Fast Bread in a Slow Cooker)When I moved to the midwest I was introduced to Crock Pot cooking. I had never even seen a slow cooker before and had no idea the range of foods that could be created in a plug-in cooking pot. Since then I have had everything from No-Peek-Chicken, Swedish Meatballs and Peach cobbler, done in one of these magic devices.Baked Zucchini Sticks and Sweet Onion Dip: that bloomin’ zucchini!Today, class, it being late July and all, we’re going to examine our zucchini facts: •Zucchini is always at the end of any A-to-Z food list; •Zucchini and fruitcake are the undeserving targets of many a joke; •The zucchini plant literally grows like a weed, making it absolutely ubiquitous in vegetable gardens across America; •And for that reason, enterprising cooks have discovered ways to turn it into muffins, and cake, and pancakes, and… Baked Zucchini Sticks. You know that onion appetizer that came into bloom back in the late ’80s? Outback Steakhouse claims it invented the “Bloomin’ Onion” back in 1988, and it wasn’t long before quasi-fast food restaurants adopted it as the hottest appetizer since artichoke dip baked in a bread bowl.

cauliflower buffalo wings-recipes-hot for food** makes 4 small or 2 large servings ingredients: 1 head of cauliflower (approx. 4-5 cups of florets) 1/2 C unsweetened non-dairy milk (almond or soy work best) 1/2 C waterBalsamic Strawberry Tiramisu-No Bake! - The Seaside BakerI am a sucker for good deals, and tend to stock up a bit too much. Now this is great for items that have a long shelf life, however for items such as produce, not so much. That’s why when awesome sales come along like Whole Foods Market’s one day only sale on organic strawberries, I quickly go through my repertoire of recipes to use the items on.So You Know: Cookie Monster's Famous Sugar Cookie Dough RecipeWe all know Cookie Monster loves to eat cookies, but it turns out he's quite the baker, too! Cookie Monster's famous cookie dough recipe first appeared in Big Bird's Busy Book, from the 1970's. If you like a bit of nostalgia mixed in with your sugar and eggs, this recipe is for you: If it's difficult to read the instructions above, here they are verbatim:

Better-Than-Crack-BrowniesI’m sorry for doing this to you. I really am. But see, last Friday while I was on a 10-hour road trip heading for vacation, I received this recipe from a reader named Liz.Milk Bread Take 2Since I’ve been working with the Tangzhong method a lot, I decided to revisit the milk bread which was the first recipe I tried, which you can read about here. As a brief summary, the “tangzhong” method was created by a chinese woman, Yvonne Chen, who calls herself the bread doctor, wrote a book which translates to “65 degrees Tangzhong.” Her method is a natural method of creating a bread that is incredibly soft, bouncy and fluffy, which is often a signature style for asian breads. Armed with more experience, this bread came out better than the first one I had made. The only problem I had was that my dough rose too much.

7UP BiscuitsWhat? Yep, that's right, 7up biscuits. Some places on the internets call these Popeye's Biscuits - I guess they taste like the biscuits from the chicken place. All I know is that these were the best biscuits that I've ever made - hands down! They were light and fluffy. They only have three ingredients - quick and easy!